Chapter 3
“Allowing Heaven to fill our thoughts”
The whole of the New Testament revolves around the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus so it should come as little surprise that the life of the believer should revolve around these two great themes as well. We see that our lives are indissolubly linked to Jesus Christ and his life was indissolubly linked to the Father. Our whole identity lies not in this present reality or world, but with the Kingdom and who Christ is. Paul tells us that we “have been raised to a new life with Christ.”
To be raised to a new life means evidently that a new power is within us. When a person becomes a Christian a new power takes over in his/her life – it is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. What does that mean in our own experience? What it actually means and what we allow it to mean are two different things. What it actually means is that a death has taken place. God has forgiven us everything, through the death of Jesus on the Cross for us. We are people who are no longer under condemnation or judgement. Here is an important starting off and jumping off point for the believer:
The past is past and we must now move on in grace. A new life begins from the moment we become a Christian. There can be no going back. Corrie ten Boom wonderfully put it like this, “When God forgives He forgets. He buries our sins in the sea and puts a sign on the bank saying ‘No Fishing Allowed.’”
It is easier for us to receive forgiveness than to offer it. Jesus knew this when he gave us what we call the Lord’s Prayer. The Church has added on a doxology at the end of verse 13 [“For thine be the power and the glory for ever and ever amen] that was never in the original text. The force of the Lord’s Prayer goes down into verse 14 and 15 of Matthew chapter 6. Go and read Matthew chapter 6 from verse 9 to verse 15. What does Jesus repeat? The vital place of forgiveness is mentioned twice, giving force to how difficult it is for the human heart to forgive. But the baggage of the past will weigh us down if we do not get rid of it. Is there an issue, incident or person that we have not forgiven, or are we carrying the burden and baggage of our past? We cannot participate in the risen life if we are weighed down by the burdens of this life. Un-forgiveness will rob us of life.
There is a new bridge to heaven and the Kingdom open to us that many of us have never crossed. Power is already there for us, from Christ, to overcome our sins and shortcomings. Many of us are like Lot, when he was taken out of Sodom; there is still a longing for the past life in that city. We have to realize, like Lot, that we need help to detach ourselves from this world and attach ourselves to the Kingdom and Christ himself. We need to submit our whole being to the Lord and ask him to give us new desires and new love for him and his people. This is quite simply not something we can do ourselves.
Our new life is with Christ. What does that mean? Paul explains this elsewhere in Colossians 1:27, “ Christ in us, the hope of glory” Too many evangelical believers see this concept of “Christ in us” as something we do at the point of a decision we make “to invite Christ into our lives.” But this is the end for many instead of the beginning. We live our new life with, and in Christ. C.H. Spurgeon in a wonderful sermon preached on May 13th1883 sets out its full meaning for us:
“We never outgrow our need for Christ; but we grow to need him more and more. He tells us that Paul who had been a Christian for many years still says, “That I might know him.” It is not what Christ gives us that satisfies the human heart but only Christ himself.
For Christ to be in us means that we have to accept him by faith. “Is it not a wonderful thing that Jesus Christ should ever enter into a man?” Yes, but I tell you something more wonderful, and that is, that he should enter in by so narrow an opening as our little faith. There is the sun; I do not know how many thousands of times the sun is bigger than the earth, and yet the sun can come into a little room or a close cell; and what is more the sun can get in through a chink….So Christ can come in through a little faith – a mere chink of confidence.
Christ in us means that we are Christ possessed. Satan himself cannot win against this soul. The matter is now settled, we are in Christ and there is nothing can change that.
Christ is experienced in all his power. Get Christ in you and he will cure your sin, fill your soul with love for goodness.
Christ reigns in us. He is the power we need to overcome sin. As he reigns in us, he can do much more than we are able to do.”
Spurgeon goes on to speak of the hope that is given to us through Jesus Christ and the indestructible nature of all that we have inherited in and through him. We have everything that we need through being in and with Christ. We are therefore to set our sights on the realities of heaven, just as Jesus did. He constantly spoke of doing the will of his Father in heaven. He looked to the Father and knew the mind and will of heaven. We need only look to Jesus and we will know the same. In everything our measure is to be Jesus. If we are in doubt about how to act or feel in any given set of circumstances we need only look to Jesus and his life on earth and we are setting our sights on the reality of heaven. I have heard, as I am sure you have too, a criticism laid at the feet of some believers, that they “are so heavenly minded, they are of no earthly use.” I would contend that if we are not heavenly minded, in that our focus is on Jesus and walking with him, we are neither of use to heaven or earth. Indeed, I would go as far as to suggest that one of the great faults of modern Christians living in the secular West is that they are not heavenly minded and as a consequence are of no earthly use.
Our values have to be those that have been set by heaven. When we look at the lists of vice and virtue later on we shall see as David Garland puts it so well in his commentary, “sin and virtue have not changed, though our perceptions of them have.” What does he mean? There is nothing new in our world when it comes to the way people behave. The believer is under orders from heaven to live according to its moral precepts. When we look at the list of vices and virtues as Paul sets out they derive their meaning [ie which category we put virtue and vice into] from God. Our culture or world may have shifted the goal posts of what is considered right or wrong, good or bad, but we must set our sights on what God in heaven declares right or wrong. We have to examine all the modes of behaviour our society, often uncritically, adopts and ask whether this would be appropriate for heaven and for the Kingdom that has already come.
“Let heaven fill your thoughts.”
Our moral vision is to be determined by the mind and will of Christ. Paul tells us that we are to have the “mind of Christ.” What does that mean? It first of all indicates that there is a battle for the mind. Christians are not called to be escapists who run from the world and into the church. Our will has to be centred on the Lord Jesus and what he would do in any given circumstance. Let’s look at some modern scenarios that Jesus might meet today if he had come to earth in our time:
A young man comes to Jesus suffering from Aids. Jesus is unafraid to go over and hug this man. He looks at a lost and broken life and in his touch he heals the young man – more than just his body is healed. “Come and follow me,” he hears and leaves this life of sin. Some people are the victims of Aids, while other people, if they had been morally responsible would not have contracted Aids. I do not think that Jesus would have differentiated between the two in his desire to heal, but he would have responsibly cautioned the man who had brought the disease on himself through moral sin, to go away and sin no more.
He meets an angry young man whose life has been full of aggression and violence. He assures this angry young man of his love and invites him to use the power within him for good. “Come and follow me.” He is invited to use his energy to heal and not harm people. Jesus is willing to put all of the damage done in the past behind – although he may call the person to acts of repentance and restoration as part of their breaking with the past.
He comes across a young woman who has abused her life with alcohol. What is she trying to forget? She is invited to leave and forgive her painful past and come to the great healer. She is encouraged to come to a person who will neither use nor abuse her and who has power greater and more attractive than alcohol or any other drug; that is both good and restorative.
He comes and sees the greedy, materialistic young man who has little or no regard for anyone but himself. But he senses this man’s loneliness and has pity on him. “Leave this life you are living and come into my family. The rewards you will bet are far greater.” That young man has been given an offer and a choice that no one else had dared offer him.
The examples could go on and on. It is only through the mind of Christ that we can see the reality of the needy world we live in. Instead of escaping from it, we immerse ourselves in it, in order to bring the compassion and love of God into the lives of those people who most need it. You see, Jesus did not go around denouncing other people for their sin. He saw at the root of most sin was a profound unhappiness. Yet, while never condoning the sin, he was with people to offer them a life more real and abundant than they ever thought was possible. Jesus lived the life, people noticed the difference, and were drawn to him. His whole concept of godliness was not about not doing certain things in order to demonstrate that he was authentic. He engaged with people as and where they were, and brought, through mercy, love and compassion, the experience of God’s Kingdom into their experience. That does not mean he condoned the sins of the “sinners” he encountered – far from it. However, how else could people be drawn into a new life unless someone lived and demonstrated that life among them? Far too many Christians develop a new life that exists around a church [often the building] and religious meetings, instead of living a positive Christian experience in the world in which they live.